The problem with using the [*] shorthand is, that everything following it until there's a newline, is replaced by a regexp with [li]\\1[/li].
By design, the only tag allowed within <ul> and <ol> is <li>. So the second [list] tag isn't allowed, and won't be parsed.

This bug has been fixed in CVS.
If this was a documentation problem, the fix will appear on pear.php.net by the end of next Sunday (CET).
If this was a problem with the pear.php.net website, the change should be live shortly.
Otherwise, the fix will appear in the package's next release.
Thank you for the report and for helping us make PEAR better.